Sri Lankan Tamil party wins landslide victory in regional election

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/22/sri-lanka-tamil-party-wins-poll

Tamil National Alliance takes 30 out of 38 seats in northern council poll, but result threatens to rekindle ethnic tensions

• Jason Burke in Jaffna
• The Guardian, Sunday 22 September 2013 16.41 BST
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A supporter of Sri Lanka's main ethnic Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance, cheers at a rally in Jaffna. Photograph: Eranga Jayawardena/AP

Sri Lanka's main Tamil party has won a landslide victory in a provincial poll that has threatened to reignite tension between the government of the island nation and the biggest ethnic minority, four years after the bloody end to its decades-long civil war.

The election was the first provincial council poll in the north of Sri Lanka in 25 years and was held following international pressure on President Mahinda Rajapaksa to make greater efforts towards reconciliation between communities in the country in the aftermath of the conflict.

Dozens of world leaders, including David Cameron, are expected to attend the Commonwealth biannual summit in Colombo in November. The choice of venue has been controversial light of criticism of the Sri Lankan government's human rights record.